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Take-Two Interactive and Sony Sued Over GTA
An anonymous reader writes "Apparently Take-Two Interactive is being sued by the parents of two kids who killed a man. I remember reading about the killing incident a few weeks ago, but this is the first I've read about an actual lawsuit. The part that I found most interesting was that Sony will also be named in the lawsuit because GTA was exclusive to their console." Update: 09/18 16:27 GMT by M : The Independent has moved/deleted the story on their site, breaking our link. We've already mentioned this story anyway.
Perhaps the parents should sue themselves for buying the cosole and the game in the first place?
Why the parents of the kids who committed those killings? I would have expected the relatives of the victims to sue Take-Two, but the relatives of the killers?
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
So if this game is so bad that it caused these kids to go out and commit this crime (no, I don't actually think there's a causal link) , then WHY WERE THE PARENTS LETTING THEIR KIDS PLAY IT!
Grand Theft Auto and its three sequels are designed in Britain and have topped the UK and US games charts, selling more than 20 million copies in the past five years.
And how many of those 2x10^7 kids became killers?
Yeah, that's what I thought.
Sony isn't being sued because GTA was PS2-only, they're being sued because GTA was available on the PS2.
If it had been available on other platforms, the other companies probably would be named in the suit also.
Of course, that's stupid if you assume (as is most plausible) that the kids probably only would have played the game on a single platform of their choice, whatever they happened to own.
But then, the very idea of suing a game manufacturer because their game inspired real-life crime is stupid.
People are responsible for their actions. Actually committing a crime? That's a crime. Depicting fictionalized crime as a form of entertainment? Not a crime. There shouldn't be any civil liability either -- all liability should fall on the heads of the dumbasses who thought it'd be a good idea to imitate pixels.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Right, because, obviously, America's children are so influenced by everything they see or hear that it must be the game's fault. Sure, the kids say they were trying to recreate scenes from GTA, but come on... this shows a serious lack of the consequences of their actions, not any sort of thing that GTA will help or hinder.
If console and computer games can so easily influence kids, then how come we don't see hoards of them acting out Everquest or Soulcalibur scenes? Where are all the kids running around collecting rings after playing Sonic for five hours in a row? Huh? Answer me that...
This is nothing more then an attempt to shift the blame. Parents don't want to think that their kids could ever do this on their own, someone or something must have "made them do it". Sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Buckner... your kid is fucked up. He deserves to go to jail and learn the consequences of his actions.
As for the lawsuit, I hope it summarily thrown out.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
When are parents going to start taking responsibility for raising their own kids. If you're not going to spend the time to instill enough morals in your kids to know that killing is wrong, you have no business being a parent let alone blaming a video game for your poor parenting...not to mention the parents are probably the ones who bought them the console and the game. These are probably the same parents who are suing McDonalds for getting them fat. Total lack of accepting any responsibility, this is what today's parents look like.
Doesn't GTA have a mature rating?
Either way, a game isn't going to make some kid go out and pick up a gun and start killing people. There were serious problems there before the kid started playing the game. This is the parents trying to deflect the blame away from their poor parenting skills.
You also have to ask where these kids got the guns from. What parent leaves guns lying around that their kids can get access to.
Take responsibility for your own actions and stop trying to pass the buck.
So if you rape someone, can you sue the Porn Industry because they sometimes portray rough sex?
If you run someone over in your car, can you sue the makers of Matchbox cars because you used to run over your GI Joes or whatever with them?
Lets just sue {insert deity here} for creating these people in the first place... maybe we should sue the aliens that put us here, or the cosmic rock dust or whatever it was...
These people need to be smacked. A good pimp smack.
I mean, what the hell? People have been shooting people for years, GTA is nothing new. Its just got better graphics.
How rediculous.
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
Wouldn't that be a refreshing take on these foolish lawsuits? Have the game developer team up with Social Services and sue the parents for doing such a poor job raising their children that they would commit murder. Having the parents suggest that a video game could cause them to commit such an act only strengthens the case that they were unfit parents.
What about the twinkie? - Dr. Peter Venkman, PHD
Where were the parents of the two accused killers when they were playing GTA in the first place? Yet another example of the "Victim Culture" the legal system has steered us towards.
Trolling is a art,
Blair and Bush kill thousands of Iraqi civilians in a war based on illusion and fabrication and the term 'acceptable collateral damage' is applied.
2 kids pop one person and Sony/Take-Two are claimed as responsible for the unprovoked violence.
The world is schizoprhenic...into madness we will all descend...
Oh, wait. They do.
So, the parents buy a game that states persons under 18 should not use the game w/o parental supervision. Then they let the kids play the game unsupervised, knowing (at least from the game packaging) the the game is violent. Oh, and the kids also have access to a rifle, which they are too young to legally possess in Tenn. This is who's fault again?
Somebody call the Department of Family and Childrens Services.
...can a person commit a murder, claim they got the idea in a computer game, sue the makers of that game, and get away with it.
If I remember correctly, one of the suspects is 17 yo, and when goes to youth prison is released when he is 18?? That is one year for committing a murder. Wow.
The sensible, civilised world looks at this and wonders how come the country hasn't fully collapsed over it's own stupidity yet.
Wouter (Dutch citizen, living in Hong Kong).
OK, two things:
1) Why were a 14 year old and a 16 year old allowed access to the rifle?
2) Why were a 14 year old and a 16 year old allowed access to a game rated Mature?
Perhaps the parents should try to answer these questions before taking a stupid case to court.
Ofcourse, it's easier to believe that video games will turn innocent wholesome kids into raving gun-toting lunatics, than to realise that you fscked up as a parent.
Although most studies show that parenting has much less impact on kids than most of us believe. If your kid is destined to be a psycho, there's pretty much nothing you can do about it.
This cheery message was brought to you by the campaign for a more depressing worldview.
These games are available everywhere else in the World - yet no other country has known such instances. Why? Gee, lemme think... hey - maybe if the kids never had access to guns, this wouldn't have happened?
They should sue Smith & Wesson / the NRA instead.
These 'kids' are 14 and 16 years old. If they can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality by now, the fact that they killed one person and injured another is beside the point. They should be locked up forever since they will always be a threat to those around them.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Perhaps we should be looking for other influences. Millions of kids play violent video games and are not worse for it. The Columbine murders have been linked to antidepressants. Perhaps there is a similar link here?
I figured I'll go after Michael Moore. He made Bowling for Columbine, and that movie portrays people who own guns. Since I can see people brandishing guns in the movie, I have to assume that kids would be arbitrarily ('cuz kids imitate what they see on TV...) be enticed into owning or using a gun out of peer pressure from the people portrayed in the movie. Also Marilyn Manson's in the movie. So he's to blame too...
Things you must never take blame for when your kids kill:
Poor Parenting
Owning a gun
Keeping Gun loaded
Not owning a gun lock
Buying the game/console
Not monitoring your kids spending habits
Not snooping in your kids lives
other media outlets (keep focused on that one media outlet as the only source of blame, ie, ignore DC sniper shootings)
So for your best bets, stay away from these topics and keep focused on one aspect of their lives. That way, it makes it look like that's the only thing THEY did and that your crappy parenting skills resulted in them playing it too much to the point that they HAD to kill.
You sound like an idiot
However one point you make is true. A study by an ex army fellow showed that the training in simulators where a soldier shot a simulated human would improve their real true-life kill rate phenomenally; and not just because it was more practice, it's because for most people, police/army/marines etc the instinct to NOT kill another human being is a strong one. Training can get past that in simulators that show moving simulations of 'live' people in a way that pop up targets do not.
So essentially yes, GTA is a killing simulator. You get to point a weapon at a simulated person, and blow them away. or drive over them. or beat the living daylights out of them with a baseball bat. Breaking down that instinct NOT to kill people is breaking down some of the most basic instincts that keep a society relatively intact.
So that being said, if you can accept it (and the book about it is quite compelling) indicates that yes, games like GTA are killing simulators. Combine that with the impetuousness of youth and you have a volatile combination. Perhaps we should ban kids from playing games like thi....
whoa hang on there are already controls over kids buying these games! Therefore the reason the kids are playing these games are the parents
The parents of the children who shot, killed and injured these people trained their children to be killers. That's where the responsibility lies and why
Uh, ever heard of knowing the difference between right and wrong, fantasy and reality. Ever heard of NOT BEING A FUCKING DIPSHIT? Incite my balls. Some fuckhead parents give their dumb-fuck kids a game meant for people that KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A FUCKING GAME AND REALITY and suddenly is the fault of the game makers that the kids are TOTAL FUCKING ASSCLOWNS? Fuck that. That is bullshit, straight up. Incitement to commit a crime is standing up and saying "I want you five guys to go and rape that woman." Incitement to commit a crime is NOT a depiction of violence.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
Reading articles about the GTA lawsuit and the Everquest, it outrages me on how little responsibility the parents take for the actions of their children and how little they hold their children accountible for their own actions. The Everquest mom let her son play the game and he was 21 years old. The GTA parents let their kids play a game that was rated for adults.
Many people like to point the finger at other things besides themselves. Outside forces caused them to do it. The sad fact of reality is that we live in the outside world. There are things beyond our control that may try to influence (drugs, crime, moral decay). We can control ourselves and not be influenced by them.
Many people will say that these games are beyond anything previously experienced. They point to all sorts of studies on how games influence violence. Evil is as old as time itself. There is a very old book. It has tales of patricide, matricide, murder, rape, incest, polygamy, adultery--every ill we know. It's called the Bible. How come none of these parents ever sued the church because it is a bad influence? Because if the silliness of it would get the lawsuit tossed out of court in a heartbeat.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
From the article: Points, ammunition and more weapons are awarded for completing missions that include stealing cars, crashing them, shooting pedestrians and other motorists, drug dealing and beating up prostitutes.
Good thing they aren't trying to make the game look bad, or anything. Just so you who have not played the game know, while you *can* do all the things mentioned above, the missions don't require you to do more than steal cars (sometimes), sling dope (in GTA:VC, on an extra mission that isn't required to beat the main story) and shoot criminals (you are never required to kill a random pedestrian or motorist in a mission, nor are you ever required to kill a policeman) and while there is one mission requiring you to beat up a pimp, there's no mission which requires you to beat up a prostitute. It is true that jacking cars is a crime, and so is killing criminals (slinging dope, while criminal, is not in the same league). That is enough of a basis for argument about the game, but making it sound worse than it is doesn't really help anything. The mere fact that you *can* do bad things is irrelevant, unless you wish to argue that everyone on the planet should be locked up because they *could* kill other people, if they wanted to.
Now, for those of you out there who are up in arms because stealing cars and killing criminals is bad enough, please remember that you have to be of age to purchase this game. By the time kids are legally allowed to buy this game, they can also watch NC-17 movies and have probably been watching R-rated movies for years and years, in which stealing cars and killing criminals (and cops, and innocent people) is not only routine but by now ennui-inducing. Anyone who shoots random people in real life has more problems than what video game they're playing. Opponents of video games would have you believe that children are incapable of distinguishing between tv and real life. The mere fact that people entertain this ridiculous supposition is evidence enough that our society is out of control. When I was a child, I played many video games, and not once did I believe that they were anything more than games. I've been a fan of television for my entire life, and I've never once confused a tv character with the actor. Never have I known anyone who did not know that tv characters are just pretend. I once asked my (then) 3-year-old niece if she thought the genie from Aladdin would come visit her, and she replied 'no, he's just on tv, silly!' Please, people. Use common sense.
http://xkcd.com/386/
you know, I grew up playing video games...as most of you did I'm sure, so my question is simple.... how many of you have gone out and killed people because you saw it in a game. Not many I'd hope. I find it strange that parents are willing to let a playstation babysit thier kids, and then have the unmittigated gaul to get upset when the kids do something stupid like this. The gaming industry has started (though not effectivley) to get serious with the game ratings, meaning if it has an M on it, you have to be 18 to purchase it. so either the parents bought this for thier kids....or just diddn't really care what they were doing untill somebody dies. maybe im strange , or maybe its from growing up in the south, but i can remember when parents actually raised thier kids, and you could punish them accordingly without fear of a lawsuit from some silly organization. its only a game....its not real...if you can't teach this to your kids, or if your kids are to stupid to understand the difference between a game and reality...then they don't belong in the same room as a playstation. "Of all the things I've lost... I miss my mind the most"
Tennessee has no Child Access Prevention (CAP) Law and has no Trigger Lock Law.
So first off the parents of these kids basically are under no liability for the apparent availability and possibly unsafe storage of their weapons. Yet they have the gall to blame this tragedy on a game clearly marked for adults, which they most likely purchased for their kids.
Don't even get me started on their lack of responsibility as parents to at least be aware of what their child is watching on television or playing on a game console.
Parenting is more than breeding and feeding.
brightloudnoise.com
Once again parents are trying to pass the buck for their own errors. I hope the judge seriously slaps these people down.
Perhaps because parents are spending less than 5% of time with their kids nowadays? Now, shut up children, ER is on TV now.
By the time I was 13, I had taken a firearms safety class. More than 10 years later, I still have it listed as an endorsement on my driver's license. Everyone I went to school with took the same class. In the town where I grew up, there has never been an accidental gun fatality, and there has been only one documented murder in the last 100 years. That was an 80 year old man shooting his 80 year old wife because she had alzheimer's.
The problem here is not so much that the kids had access to guns. In most cases, 14 is old enough to use a gun responsibly. The issue is that the parents didn't require everyone in the house to take gun safety classes. The other(bigger) issue is that the parents didn't instill morals in their offspring. These parents should have been sterilized at the first hint of puberty.
This is why the gene pool needs chlorine.
-
"Vengeance is fine," sayeth the Lord.
"... Sony will also be named in the lawsuit because GTA was exclusive to their console."
GTA 3 is also available on the PC. Why not sue Microsoft, creators of Windows and DirectX, for allowing the game to be played on the OS? While they're at it, sue Intel, NVidia, Corsair, Asus, Hitachi (cause there's got to be a Hitachi chip in that computer somewhere), Kensington, SonicView, Plextor and Lian-li?
After all, those bastards should have to pay for what they did. They need to be more responsible? Don't these companies know they are raising these children??
I know that if I ever have kids and get a divorce, I'm gonna sue Microsoft and Toyota for alimony!
I love it when the media pull a stunt like they did @ Columbine. Any idea how old DOOM was in 1999. It was 6 years old. 6! Do you think any self-respecting gamer (especially a teen) would play a 6 year old game? No. If I went out and shot somebody today the media would say it's because I played Pac Man in my youth. It's utterly irrelevant. It sells newspapers though.
This issue continues to come back up, time and time again. Whenever there is a killing or attack by someone under the age of 18, ANYWHERE, games, television, and other items which identify the current culture are being put to blame.
If it were necessarily true that kids follow games, then why aren't MORE kids out there killing and maiming? The mentality is set to a small group. If there was a mass hysteria, sure, maybe then there would be something. But for God's sake, people, it's a video game! I played them on the Commodore 64, Apple 2, Atari 2600, Intellivision, and the original Nintendo when I was a kid!
Did they have an effect on me? Well, as a kid, I never knocked over a turtle and kicked it away a la Mario Brothers! I never stole a car and took it for a spin around the city like many racing games! Hell, I never went out and had sex at age 12 because of all those crappy sex games the C-64 had available for it, either.
So the question remains: why are kids being blamed, and in this case saying, that they learned the behavior from TV and video games? Simple answer: their parents and the media. Parents today are worried about their kids, and they have every right to be. But what do they do? (And I have noticed this with friends and family who have children of various ages.) When their kid is in trouble, they ask them where they learned it. "Was it on TV? Was it in those video games they play?" The parents are giving the kids the scapegoat the kids want and need, and the companies that make the games are the ones getting in crap. The media blows all of this out of proportion, with CNN reporting hours-upon-hours of how the games are corrupting the youth.
Grow up, people! Yes, some people may be influenced by games, but those people need some form of attention and intervention; it will not go away by removing one video game. Take some responsibility for your own actions, and that includes random blaming of games and television for acts which are probably rooted deeper into the kid's psyche (although I am not a psychologist).
Given that God is infinite, and the Universe is also infinite, would you like some toast?
The lawsuit is being filed by one victim and the family of the other victim. The morons doing the shooting aren't involved in this aspect of it (unless they are asked to testify that the video game made them do it, which we all know is just stupid).
My favorite quote from the article:
It's nice to see that this guy is a complete moron, and this isn't just an isolated incident. What does he expect when he fires a rifle at people? They'll just respawn or something? Sad...
If all you have are silver bullets, everything looks like a werewolf.
So here's a question...why don't we take responsibility for our actions today?
When was the last time you were late to work "because your alarm didn't go off"? (of course, you forgot to set it)
Late to dinner because "the boss gave me too much work" (of course, my time-management skills suck)
Didn't have that module finished and checked in to source control by the deadline because COM sucks/the network was slow/bugs in the compiler. (not to mention I was reading slashdot)
We have met the excuse makers - and they are us!
Ok, I'm off late to a meeting because...my Outlook reminder didn't go off. (and I was replying to this doggone post)
Your honor, I would like to claim damages from Sony for taking away my parenthood and teaching my kids to kill. I was too busy watching TV to teach my kids any values so I would also like to sue Fox.
My kids play Mech Commander!!!
When those giant Mechs come stomping your way you had better move. It won't be my fault.
Sanity is overrated...Being CRAZY is much more fun!!!
You might ask yourself if those kids would have commited that crime if they didn't have access to a .22 rifle. If you were to own one of those things, wouldn't you keep it out of reach/sight of your kids, and at least be responsible yourself if they were to use it?
Violent games don't make violent kids. Violent kids latch on to whatever is violent around them. Whether it's the US bombing Iraq, the hundred of shootings you hear about on the news each year, or a game where you can shoot people. If GTA wasn't available it would have been something else. Video game makers are just considered an easy target.
They ask me if I'm a cop, or a handgun expert. They make comments about not getting in my way. It is people like these who believe that video games are training zombie killers...
NEWSFLASH! The bad guys are always in the SAME PLACE. I am holding a plastic replica of a gun that is much lighter than a real gun, and which has no recoil. I don't physically have to duck, or fumble to load ammunition while being shot at. I may shoot at running targets, but generally, their speed is constant, and they are not running towards me or away, only across the screen. I know which of the bad guys, in which uniforms, can kill me instantly, and which can only wound me slightly. I also never have to look behind me...
Anyone who believes that my knowledge and skill in Time Crisis could allow me to pick up an actual gun and use it any kind of useful way, is a flippin maroon. Yep, it's about as stupid as imagining that GTA is teaching children how to steal cars, and race them with skill and technique.... As if.
don't mess with those geekgrrls
I guess the Fresh Prince was right. Parents just don't understand. Sure the TV is a great babysitter. It's always there, always on, always ready to show your kids gruesome violence and hot nasty sex when you aren't checking what they are watching. Videogames are great too. Anything to keep the kids occupied. Wait, my baby is a killer? Huh? What? MY FAULT? Hell no it isn't my fault. I'm a parent, so nothing is my fault. It must be that videogame he played. That's the problem. In fact, I'm suing the game companies. While I'm at it, I think I should sue Smith & Wesson. They make guns right? Obviously they're the problem. Also, I should sue McDonalds for my fat ass. And Dell for all that computer pron I have. Oh, and Western Digital for making the hard drive that it's on. And we have to sue the government, because I'm sure they've done something wrong. Or maybe, just maybe I shouldn't have bought a F***ING MATURE RATED GAME for my 4 year old.
"I, for one, welcome our new %INSERT ARTICLE SUBJECT HERE% overlords."
I've read about this lawsuits on several news sites, and in each of them the reason given by the boys is that playing the video game gave them the idea. Completely missed by all news sources was the fact that a 16-year-old and a 14-year-old had an unsupervised .22 caliber rifle. I find the fact that this part has consistently been overlooked in favor of their uber-lame excuse for doing something stupid and dangerous very frightening.
I think there is quite a bit of "Lord of The Flies" factor at work in today's society. In general, kids spend so little time acting as peers with adults that kids end up bootstrapping their own culture and values off eachother and their environment. I don't think that it was always historically true that kids and adults were isolated from eachother except for a few hours at night. I imagine that if a young boy goes out into the field and helps his father all day on the farm that he would consider his father more of a peer (if a higher-ranking one) than the kid across the road who spends all day throwing frogs at trees.
o my gawd....how lame.
Trying to dodge responsibility like that is so....irresponsible.
The fact of the matter is, they STILL KILLED the guy. Even if they imitated a movie or a game, they are the ones responsible. Just like how you can't say that Hitler isn't responsible for the millions he killed in his vision or his officers who did the dirty work. You can't say that the man in white is responsible 'cause that's what Hitler said gave him the idea, etc.
Why can't ppl not point fingers and be honorable?
MoFoQ gets his pitchfork and flaming torches used almost exclusively for SCO and spammers ready for use.
God forbid we actually blame the children who commited the crime. It was poor Johnny's upbringing and his environment! It drove him to KILL!
Waah waaah wwaaaaaaah. I hope the judge laughs at this and tosses it out.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
Okay, say what you will about bad video games, and negligent parents who bought the video games, or negligent walmart clerks that sold the game to the kids (about which I am in full agreement), but this wouldn't/couldn't have happened if the kids hadn't had guns.
The reality is that kids in the U.S. can get ahold of guns pretty easily, but nobody would go suing the gun manufacturer because their kid shot someone (or maybe I'm wrong here -- they certainly wouldn't win). Guns aren't even rated M for Mature (though they are controlled by laws).
It just puzzles me that people are so worried about the video games warping people's minds when maybe they should be worrying about a bigger issue -- irresponsible children with guns.
To me, giving either a Mature game, or a gun, or even a license or whatever to a child who is not old/mature enough to handle it properly are equally dangerous, but everybody decides to pick one and try to get it off the market. Conversely, a responsible human being can safely operate a car, gun, or video game, and have a helluva lot of fun doing it. Why should the responsible ones suffer because some idiot let their kid screw around with something they weren't ready for?
If some negligent parents let their 10 y/o kid drive, and that kid killed someone, who is at fault? The car manufacturer? I think not! Okay, you don't need a license to play a video game, but the rating on it (just like a R-rated movie) should be just as effective. In most places you also need a license to handle a gun.
I've reiterated my point several times because it just bothers me when people misplace blame -- which in this case should go first to the kids, second to the parents, and third to the store who sold the game to the kids (unless the parents bought it, in which case the parents take another hit on the blame). NEVER, under (at least) these circumstances should the game maker or sony be at fault.
That said, maybe Sony could have done something about it -- put a v-chip-like device on the console, thereby rendering it unusable for Mature games w/o parental consent (though I imagine those are less effective than they claim).
Why does everyone try to blame everything but the the absolute fix-factor: If the kids hadn't had access to guns they couldn't have shot anybody.
Why look beyond this painstakingly obvious solution?
The only reason powerful enough to keep a gun law (written at the days before automatic weapons and when a marksman was someone who could hit a barn door at 100 meters) that results in ~9000 US deaths, more than the normal/capita in the western world, is money for the gun industry.
The right to own a gun is useless without the right to shoot the people who gave you that right.
Open source is the art of letting other people write your bad code.
Let me start by saying: (1) Yes, I am a lawyer; (2) yes I think these lawsuits are silly; (3) I don't believe the parents have a very good chance of winning.
Whenever this issue comes up, there is the inevitable deluge of virulent "where were the parents!" and "why weren't you teaching your kids values" type posts/comments/rants. Despite the mind numbing banality of most of these, people seem to continue to harp on about it over and over.
What I find particularly interesting is the attempt to ascribe these types of lawsuits to "liberals" and "the left", and the rabid conservative mantra that liberals have "destroyed personal responsibility." (Like fiscal responsibility? largest deficit in history)
I am wary of these "where were the parents" type simplifications. It seems to me that these are all based on a mythical image of the American Family that is taken straight from 1950's television, and has little (or no) bearing on today's society. Where were the parents? Working two jobs that require 60+ hours a week so they can continue to enjoy the "middle class" life in some suburban development near a semi-decent school. By the time Mom & Dad have come home at 6:00 or 7:00 pm and made dinner, they are probably way too strung out from a 14 hour day to be providing much useful moral guidance.
Don't get me wrong, I support working Mom's and Dads. My family is a two-job deal, but we are lucky in that, because I have a high-priced legal education, we can afford full time child care for our tots. Most parents in the U.S. can't do that.
Meanwhile the kids are sitting around at home from 3pm when schools let out, thanks to shorter school days brought about by reduced budgets. There aren't too many organized, safe after school programs anymore (especially for kids who aren't athletic, or aren't into sports, which I'd be a large number of /.'ers can relate to).
Sure, 99% of the people smart enough to read this site were smart enough to separate fact from fancy at a pretty young age. But ask yourself: didn't you do anything stupid at the age of 14 (or 24) that you now look back on and go "whoa...I was an idiot..." The thing maturity brings is an ability to think through the potential consequences of your actions. That's what "learning from experience" is all about. Now, none of us (hopefully) ever decided to shoot at trucks on the highway. But I'll bet a few people here tossed things off an overpass...or put things on the train tracks...or stole a stop sign (guilty)...or any of a hundred things that could have caused serious injury. The kids involved in the GTA case are probably particularly sub-par in the brains department, but they didn't set out to hurt people, they just didn't consider that if you shoot at the side of a truck (a supposedly destructive but not dangerous act) it might have dire consequences if you MISS. (After all, how many of us miss all that often using the sniper rifle in GTA?) So, bad decision on their part.
People are incensed that TakeTwo and Sony are sued. It is descried as evidence of the out of control courts. However, what conservatives never seem to point out is that almost all of these suits are dismissed early on (and if you dig into the ones that aren't, like the infamous McDonald's coffee case, you find the facts aren't as cut-and-dried as you think). In other words, the courts aren't out of control; they are doing exactly what they are designed to do: adjudicate the rights of parties who feel they have been wronged.
One last (semi-random) point. Someone raised a first amendment issue below. That isn't really relevant here. Whether TakeTwo has a right to publish GTAIII is different from whether they can be held responsible for consequences that naturally flow from their decision to do so. (I'm not saying that shooting at trucks is a natur
I'm a lawyer with excellent karma. Something's gotta be wrong.
IAXM as well (though that doesn't really apply here...), but this argument oringally came from Army psychologist Lt Col David Grossman, who has been the flag-carrier for the whole anti-violent video game movement, if you want to call it that. He says that games like DOOM are murder simulators (and I paraphrase here) because the games teach the same killing techniques that the military does.
There was a school shooting, can't remember exactly where, where the kid shot and killed like 7 out of 8 of the students that he aimed for using the same methods that soldiers are taught. Witnesses said that while he was shooting, he had a blank expression, stood in one place with a sturdy stance, and fired exactly one shot at each target. This from a kid who had never touched a gun in his life prior to that morning. Grossman went on to say that this was how first-person shooters like DOOM and Quake teach one how to play: you stroll around corridors armed to the teeth, cleaning out room after room and firing at absolutely anything that moves.
This sounds a little chilling to a master Quake player like myself, but a little critical thinking dispells this entire notion. First, like the parent post mentions, sighting a 3D target and pulling the trigger on a gun is absolutely nothing like training your crosshairs on a demon in a 2D window and pressing the mouse button. Second, no FPS that I'm aware of lets you kill an enemy with one shot. (Exceptions: Quake when you happen to grab the Quad and Unreal when you aim for the head with the sniper rifle.) Third, in every FPS game out there, standing still and living are mutually exclusive.
Sue the kids for copyright infringement.
Planned Parenthood for not stepping in, there were undoubtedly warning signs (like the parents wanting a label on the bottom of soda bottles stating -OPEN OTHER END-)
Charles Darwin (his estate) for not living long enough to personally talk to these parents and convince them to put a deer slug through their skulls
The parents themselves for not noting that their kids had been playing a Mature rated game while they were under 17.
If I had my way, there would be no lawsuit. At the first motion to bring such action, the parents should be investigated and the kids be placed in state custody, preferably in a JDC.
Why so hard?
I was raised in a single parent home and I have played every form of violent, bloody, rip-your-opponent's-whatever-off game relesed since I was, oh, say, 7 years old.
I'm 19 and now studying Journalism at UCF.
Never got around to killing anyone "just like in GTA!!" since it's easy to point out that plasma blasters and one-man-portable railguns (that fire every 2 seconds) do not exist IN REAL LIFE.